The next morning Neema woke on Aunt Mariam’s mattress before the neighbour’s chicken crowed for the second time. Her back ached because she had slept in yesterday’s clothes. On a chair by the window, the black funeral cloth lay folded like someone waiting to be forgiven. Neema did not look at it for long. The day was not only for crying; three uniform orders were waiting, and room rent could not be paid with memories.
Mariam brought her ginger tea and a piece of bread. “Do not go to Mtoni without eating.”
“I will go to my stall. The school customer is coming at four.”
“Where are your machines?”
Neema was silent. Her large machine was in Mama Asha’s shop, behind the shutter Mosi had locked. The small hand machine could not sew six uniforms at once. She opened her own notebook, counted the money left, and wrote three words along the margin: room, thread, fare.
Her sewing stall was a plastic table beneath a corrugated roof near the bus stop. On ordinary days bright cloth hung like a flag. That day the table held only needles, scissors, and a small machine whose sound rasped at every seam. Lela, Mariam’s niece, arrived carrying a bag of fabric.
“Mother said I should help carry,” Lela said. “Is this everything?”
“The rest is in Mama’s shop.”
Lela wanted to ask why Neema could not go and take it, but she saw her aunt’s face and opened the bag without a word. Neema spread a uniform cloth on the table, measured a shirt panel, and showed Lela how to place the pins. Her customer, Mr Omari, arrived early with school receipts in his hand.
“I heard you were mourning,” he said softly.
“I am mourning, but the order still exists.”
“I can wait.”
“If you wait, what will your children wear on Monday?”
He smiled sadly. “Then let me not stand in your way.”
Neema began to sew. Each time she pushed the cloth under the needle, the small machine gave a broken rasp. The customer did not know that every stitch made Neema count the house: the first mortgage month, the seventh, the third year of roof repairs. She touched her phone. There was no message from Kato.
When Lela went to buy thread, Neema opened a copy of the payment notebook. On the fourth-year page stood a line marked “M.A. — house,” followed by transfer numbers. Some had come from Neema’s account, some from Mama Asha, and two were marked with Mosi’s name. Neema disliked what she saw because it did not allow her anger to remain pure. Mosi had contributed too, though no amount or date was explained.
She called him. The phone rang twice and was cut off.
She typed: “I need my machine and the fabric for my orders. I do not want a quarrel. Let us set a time for me to collect them.”
Her finger paused over send. Then she added, “I also ask for Mama’s notebook.” She read the message twice and sent it. She did not write that he had stolen or that she would sue him. Those words would turn the door into a battle before she knew what lay behind it.
A second customer arrived with a uniform whose zip had broken. Neema opened the seam, removed the old thread, and replaced it. The woman complained that the sewing price was high.
“Thread has become expensive,” Neema said.
“Your mother used to give me a discount.”
“Mama first taught me to count costs before giving a discount.”
The woman studied her, then paid in full. Neema divided the money at once: one part for the order and one for the room. If she paid two weeks’ rent, almost nothing would remain for machine repairs. Instead of borrowing from Mosi, she messaged Mariam to ask whether she could stay another week. Mariam replied with one word: “Stay.”
Near midday Lela returned with news that a boda driver could help move the large machine from the shop that night, if the door were opened. Hope tried to enter Neema, but the new bolt stopped it.
“Mosi will not open it,” Lela said.
“Perhaps Kato will be there.”
“And if you arrive and are locked out again?”
Neema folded the cloth. “Then I will not fight. I will write down everything I need.”
At evening, while closing the stall, her phone rang. No number appeared. Neema answered without speaking.
There was a person’s breath, then the small sound of something striking a surface.
“Mama?” Neema said, not knowing why.
No one answered. The call ended.
She stared at the screen. It was Mama Asha’s number, which should have been switched off since the funeral. Neema called back, but it was unavailable. Beneath the table a needle fell and pierced the black cloth tied around her bag. When she picked it up, she found the small paper she had written that morning: “Room. Thread. Fare.”
With a tired pen she added a fourth word: “Phone.”
That night Neema returned to Mariam after completing two orders and earning the day’s money. She still had no machine, no notebook from Mama, and no way through Mtoni’s locked door. But she now knew the dispute was not only about ownership. Someone had called Mama Asha’s phone after the funeral and cut the call before saying anything.
Neema did not show Lela the fear eating at her. She taught the girl to fold a shirt corner without creasing the cloth, then said a small business did not grow in one day. Lela listened, but saw her aunt wipe her eyes with the back of her hand whenever she turned away. Work gave Neema a line through grief: cut, measure, sew, count. The trouble was that Mtoni’s house was not cloth to be folded; every edge was held by a different person.
Mama Asha’s phone rang again, and this time it left a voiceless message.
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